A McKaslin Homecoming. Jillian Hart

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      “You’re still not looking too well. Did you drive straight through?”

      She shook her head. Took the glass. Stared at the lemony goodness. Here was the edge of that memory. She tasted the lemonade and already knew the flavorful and sweet-tart taste before it hit her tongue. Frustrated, she wished there was more to her recollection.

      “You rest here. Rehydrate.” Caleb rose. He remained behind her, out of her sight, but his presence was substantial all the same. “I’ll take your bags out to the carriage house.”

      It had been a long time since anyone had helped her. “Thanks, Caleb.”

      “Sure thing.” Then he was gone, leaving her alone with the glass of lemonade.

      Maybe her lack of memory was a sign. Her mind had buried something so deep on purpose—to protect her or because it hadn’t mattered. She wanted answers, but what if she didn’t like what she found out?

      I could get hurt.

      Uncertainty and regret swirled into a black mass in the middle of her stomach. Her hands began to tremble, sloshing the lemonade around in the tall cool glass.

      What would her grandmother think of her? Would there be disappointment on her face? Would she, like her daughter, Lauren’s mother, find so much to criticize?

      So many worries. She would give them to the Lord. She took a shaky breath, trying to pull herself together. Hot wind breezed against her face like a touch, reminding her of where she was. The drum of a man’s sure and leisurely gait knelled on the porch boards behind her. She could feel the vibration of his steps roll through her.

      Lauren couldn’t exactly say why she was so aware of Caleb’s Stone presence.

      He sat next to her and shaded his eyes with one broad, sun-browned hand. He gazed down the long stretch of gravel driveway. “You feel a little nervous about all this?”

      “Something like that.” Although nervous didn’t begin to describe it. As nice as Caleb seemed, he was a stranger to her, and she didn’t feel comfortable talking about something so private. Time to change the subject. “The horses are all right?”

      “I’ve got to get back and give them a rub down and a little water, but I had to see to you first. It can’t be easy coming back after all these years.”

      “Coming back? I don’t remember this place at all. Nothing.”

      “You were pretty young when you left.”

      “When my mother took me.” There was a difference. All she could remember was crying and then choking on her own sobs, bouncing around on the vinyl backseat of her mom’s 1962 Ford as they drove away forever. She’d been two. She could still hear her mom’s voice, trembling with that high, nervous tone she had when everything was going wrong. “We’re meant for better things, you and me. You’ll see, sweetness.”

      Better things had been a long string of shabby apartments—and sometimes worse—until Lauren had struck out on her own. In a way, she’d always been alone. She didn’t mind it. She’d never known anything else.

      He broke into her thoughts. “I’m a good friend with your brother. Spence. I know your sisters real well.”

      “Then you’re not only a neighbor, but a family friend.”

      “You could say that.”

      But what wasn’t he saying, Lauren wondered. Was he starting to piece things together and beginning to wonder about her? If she was like her mother? She took a sip of lemonade. The flavor burst across her tongue more sweet than tart and that tugged at lost memories, too.

      Although she didn’t say anything, Caleb kept talking. He steepled his hands. “Do you remember your brother at all? He’s the oldest. You know that, right?”

      The lemonade caught halfway down, sticking like a heavy ball in her throat, turning sour. No longer sweet. “My grandmother had mentioned my brother and sisters. But I don’t remember them.”

      “You don’t even remember your family?”

      She couldn’t swallow. It was even more impossible to talk. She stared at her flip-flops, blue to match her summer top. It felt shameful, not to remember. Like she didn’t care enough to, but that wasn’t right. More like she was afraid to remember anything that happened before sitting on that backseat with her mother scolding her to shut up. Lauren remembered biting down on her lip to keep the sobs inside and staring hard at her little denim sneakers with the orange laces.

      She’d only allowed herself to cry in private since.

      Now she felt a hot burn behind her eyes and her vision blurred. “I was hoping to find out that my mother was wrong. That they hadn’t forgotten me. That they didn’t want me to go in the first place.”

      Caleb didn’t get it. He knew mostly from rumor about the mother, of course. It had been a terrible shame for the family, how the young mother of five had run away, abandoning her home and husband and older children. “Why did you wait so long?”

      “It’s complicated. And p-painful.” She shrugged a slender shoulder—too slender of a shoulder.

      He believed her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up anything painful.”

      “Being here is painful. My mom wasn’t exactly honest. She said that I didn’t have any grandparents who were still alive. And that the family, well—” she paused. “They hadn’t w-wanted us. Me. That my father signed me away.”

      “That wasn’t the case. It’s not my business and I’m only a friend, but I do know that much. Look. There’s your grandmother.”

      A gleam at the far bend in the driveway caught her attention. A faint cloud of dust rose up behind an oncoming vehicle. Her grandmother? Lauren’s heart kicked hard against her sternum. Nerves roiled up again. And the worries. What if this didn’t go as well as she hoped? What if she was a disappointment to her grandmother? Or her grandmother to her?

      You can do this, Lauren.

      She took a steady breath, sat up straight and set the glass of lemonade down on the step, up against the newel so it would be out of the way. Sunlight reflected off the oncoming windshield. Eternity passed while she watched that vehicle in the distance take shape and form and color. A gray, perfectly shined luxury sedan rolled to a stop alongside her rattletrap car.

      The hood ornament glinted like an unreachable promise and there was a woman, gray-haired and somber, staring at her over the hood. Hard to tell behind the dark designer sunglasses what her first impression of Lauren was, but her mouth was a straight, unsmiling line.

      She is disappointed in me. Lauren’s heart fell to the floor. Emotion wedged so tight in her throat she couldn’t swallow. She tried to rise, but her knees were too weak. Had she come all this way for nothing?

      Then she felt a rock-solid hand at her elbow. A man’s big hand cupped her elbow and steadied her in comfort and support. She fought the urge to step away; his touch calmed her and she didn’t mind leaning on him, just a little. When she turned to thank him his steady eyes were soft with kindness. Kindness.

      “It’ll СКАЧАТЬ